ee

' “faster these days.

_ There is no

ew.

_ mystery about

our history

| By JOHN WEIR

: ie : ROOKs on Canadian history

are coming thicker and
Not history
books to uncover and explain
More clearly the very complex
Process of the development of
Canada and its people. But in-
Stead books “on Canadian his-
tory,” which seek to bolster

Some purpose of the author and

his sponsors. In doing this, they
do dig up facts which are useful
and they do pose questions
which are pertinent—but these
are more by-products than

: direct fruits of their labors.

Clearly, the old Canadian his-

tory books, which were deemed

Sufficient in previous times,
are inadequate today. And just
a8 clearly, the bourgeois his-

_torians today prefer the non-

historical method of fitting the

_ kody of Canadian history into

their particular Procrustean bed,
ag Professor Chester Martin does
in Foundations’ of Canadian

Nationhood or else they deny —

historical science altogether, as
does Bruce Hutchison in The
Struggle for the Border, and
Hutchison of course is not a
historian at all, but a journalist
of a certain kind.

Yet both books contain much
Valuable material to the student

_ Of Canadian history—and that

Should take in everybody who
Wants to contribute to his
Country’s welfare and progress.

oak

The hard nut around which
€se and quite a few other
Works are centred, is the
Question of Canadian-U.S. re-
tions. Since the First World
War, and especially since the
ond, those relations have
nm on a new plane: the sub-
ordination of Canadian indepen-
dence, of the vital interests of
ada, to U.S. imperialism.

The politicians of national
betrayal call it “integration”
and simply proclaim that it is
Gictated by stark necessity, the
Only guarantee of survival

(commit suicide for fear some-

dy will kill you”).

Historians and Hutchisons are
dipping into Canadian history
Im an endeavor to prove that

€verything is as it should be,

t surrender to a foreign im-

‘Perialism is in actuality the

Owering of nationhood, that
anada has realized her des-
tony, though Chester Martin
(after all, he is a professor of
Istory, not just a political
lack-writer) is a bit doubtful

9 this score and finishes his
book with the hope that “Canada

_ May be saved by the opening
» St the North.”

Martin’s Foundations of Can-
an Nationhood has a thesis
h a pattern into which the
istory of Canada must be

fitted. They are stated on the
cover blurb, expanded in the
foreword and then developed
through 500 pages of the book.

His idea is that of the late
John W. Dafoe, longtime editor
of the Winnipeg Free Press:
Canada is really another USA,
only it got there differently
(“political tradition unbroken
by revolution or civil war”)
and is different (distinguished
mainly by its “parliamentary ad-
dition” and “moderation”). And
“the two traditions which they
represent may by expected to
survive side by side in North
America in mutual respect and
association” by “sliddering” on
the part of Canada (“many
problems are best solved by
leaving them unsolved”).

_ That’s the credo. The patfern
is: “The four main attributes of
nationhood — self-government,

. 1
federation, transcontinental ex-.

pansion and functional recog-
nition abroad—-are those which
underlay the prodigious rise of
the United States, but in Canada
they were acquired piecemeal
and over long intervals of time.’

So the book traces the way in
which each of these four “attri-
butes of nationhood” was achiev”
ed in Canada, lining up a lot
of valuable historical material
as it goes along...

The conclusions? Canadians
are more ,virtuous than the
Yankees, but much _ slower;
we'll survive somehow if we
“slidder along’ (a. Canadian
version of the British “mud-

dling through”) ...the profes-
‘sor piously hopes.

*

The task of the historian and
the patriot is not to start from
the similarities or otherwise of
Canada’s development to that
of the U.S., but from the in-
terests of Canada. Relations

with, and similarities or dis-.

similarities to, the U.S. will
then fall in their proper place.

‘ In actual historical fact, that
place has been the constant
struggle against U.S. encroach-
ment and attempts to annex our

’ country. Those historians who
are obsessed with measuring

Canada continually to the U.S.,
are usually found in the service
of the architects of “integration.”

“Martin would have done a

greater service to history and

to Canada if he had helped to
unearth and bring forward the
economic interests and neces-
sities that were the main force

driving ‘to the formation § of
Canada dnd its struggle for in-
dependence. How these were

‘modified because of the U.S.

peril, and the historical role of
Britain. Then he would also
clearly see how the latest his-
tory, that of the last decade,
puts all our past achievements
in jeopardy.

A historian is also a citizen.
He has a responsibility and a
duty. How can a historian
counsel “sliddering” ? How cana
historian say that the best way
to solve problems is to leave
them unsolved ? That’s a denial
of any sense of human affairs, a

denial that there are any lessons
in history. Of what use -is that
sort of “history” ?

Not to “slidder,” but to fight

for Canadian independence, to
build up Canada’s economy, to

‘promote Canadian culture —

and to give our people a history
of their country which leads
them to understand the road we
have travelled and helps them
to see and inspires them to take
the road which we must travel
—those are the conclusions we
need. :

*

Bruce Hutchison is a news-
paperman (of the “sensational”
type), an. apologist for the
Liberal party and governments,
a protagonist of “selling” Can-
ada to the United States. A
very superficial, but also a very
pretentious writer. °

In The Unknown Country he

blithely skipped over Canada’s

history and geography and

what-not for the edification of.

Yankee tourists and may-be in-
vestors, and in The Incredible
Canadian he undertook the in-

. credible task of glamorizing the

late prime minister, spiritualist
and “cold war” corporal, Wil-
liam Lyon Mackenzie King.

This is how Bruce Hutchison
commences his introduction to
The Struggle for the Border:__

“An influential school of
modern historians seems to
hold that man’s affairs are
settled by ineluctable, im-
personal, and calculable forces
“to which various convenient/

BRUCE HUTCHISON
Not a historian at all, but a
journalist of a certain kind.

“Uncle Sam Kicked Out” is the caption of this cartoon as it
appeared in Grimchuckle of September 25, 1869. It reflects the

strong anti-annexationist feeling which runs like a thread through

Canadian history.

lables are given. That may be
true. But human beings —
uncertain, personal, and in-
calculable — also have some-
thing to do with the course of
human events or, ‘if not, we
had better leave the future to
the Communists, who have
everything well arranged and
taped up in advance.”

Bruce Hutchison is a brave
man. In one paragraph he de-
molishes the historians (he
acknowledges that they are*in-
fluential) who believe that there

are laws governing the develop-

ment of human society and that
they can be studied and learned,
confesses that he doesn’t know
if there is any reason to human
actions (though he presumes, to
write a book on history), pins
his calculations on the incalcul-
able, and then brazenly presents
a forgery of the Communist
views on history.

In a short paragraph ‘of only
three sentences at that!

Of course, Communists don’t
have “everything well arranged
and taped up in advance.” Com-
munists study history, all of the
facts, and processes, in order
to understand why certain
events took place and the way
they took place, and thus to
know the thread leading to our
own times and to be able to
foresee the general -shape of
things to come, and to act in

line with that direction.

Communists believe that the
forces at work in history and
the reasons for historical events

are calculable, and that whims

or accidents are subordinate and
not lasting. In fact, a study ot
history reveals that behind
human “whims” and “accidents”
there are usually found to be
very good reasons, if only you
look for them and recognize
them when you see them.

As for the future... well, it’s
not Bruce Hutchison’s to leave
to anybody. It will be fashioned
by the Canadian people.

It’s a pity tHat Hutchison
writes with that breathless,

>

“sensational”, style, for he writes
about great men and import-
ant pages in Canadian history.

In spite of the author, you
get inspired (and learn quite
a bit, too) as you travel with
the explorers and battle along-
side the fighters and statesmen
who in their various ways
fashioned our country and de-
fended its border.

If the cult of the individual
and. shallow “incalculability”
make it less than_ history, if
the continual second-rate Holly-
wood script style palls on you,
and if the modern traffickers
of Canada are blown up as
knights .of the grail, still you
do see great pages and. figures
from Canadian history come
to life, which inspires you —
perhaps, because our school his-
tory textbooks are so dull.

Of course, the struggle for the
border was the struggle against
the U.S. Bruce Huchison does
not conceal that, he says so.

He traces it through preceding
history, but when he comes to
our own times, he turns apolo-
gist for the policy of surrender, —
and the border for which pre-
vious generations struggled Be-
comes for him “the boundary
that divides it (U.S.-Canadian
unity) yet laces it together by
hidden stitches in a_ texture
entirely North American, unique,
sui generis.” 2

And so, Bruce Hutchison, who
boldly started out by denying
“impersonal and _ calculable
forces” in history, finishes his’
book by declaring that there are
“hidden. stitches” which bind
Canada to the chariot of U.S.
imperialism . . .

Canada’s past as well as
Canada’s present is arising to
face the great historical tasks
of our age. The people who
would deny Canada’s tomorrow
are burrowing into our country’s
history, striving to find in it
excuses for their betrayal,
faintheartedness or stupidity.

But history is on the side of
those who are fighting for the
future. And Canadian history
must be put in the front rank
of. the battalions battling for
Canadian independence, people’s
democracy and socialism. :

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — NOVEMBER 18, 1955 — PAGE 9